{"id":1101,"date":"2016-03-14T15:48:16","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T15:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/?p=1101"},"modified":"2017-01-31T22:20:50","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T22:20:50","slug":"you-are-too-negative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/?p=1101","title":{"rendered":"“You Are Too Negative!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

People sometimes accuse me of being too negative.\u00a0 They certainly have a case for declaring me as negative, but too negative is a matter of opinion. \u00a0The Apostle Paul was negative.\u00a0 Christ was negative. The fact is, the word of God is both positive and negative.\u00a0 There are positives in the Gospel, but it requires that one turn from one’s sinfulness, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and surrender to God.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

The truth is positive and negative because it presents life and exposes the falsehoods that lead to death.\u00a0 The negatives of truth are more applicable the greater its positives are rejected.\u00a0 Please consider that in God\u2019s word we can see the pattern of increasing negatives as apostasy increased in Israel.\u00a0 When the prophets arrived, they spoke mostly negatively.\u00a0 The only positives were in their proclamation of the benefits of repentance.\u00a0 Which of the prophets spoke an abundance of pleasant and positive things during Israel\u2019s apostasy?<\/span><\/p>\n

The same is true in any crisis of danger.\u00a0 We would speak completely in the negative to save someone from death or serious injury.\u00a0 Should their next step be fatal, we would scream out the negative, \u201cStop! Don\u2019t take another step!\u201d\u00a0 In counselling with someone we love who is about to make a great mistake with seriously damaging consequences, we would present much more negative than positive.\u00a0 The abundance of negative is because the danger must be exposed including all the steps leading to it.\u00a0 The positive is the benefit of not making the mistake.<\/span><\/p>\n

This world is presently in grave danger in the secular and religious realms.\u00a0 They are on a course of convergence.\u00a0 I do not need to list all the wickedness in both realms to present the picture. \u00a0However, it is the apostasy that troubles me the most.\u00a0 Although an abundance of positive information that could be disseminated, the great majority of professing Christians have no spiritual palate for any of it.\u00a0 They wish to be told that everything is okay, that this tumultuous and dark period of teeming wickedness abounding in all sectors will pass, and the good life will return.\u00a0 They have dropped the precious vase of truth from the pinnacle of their faithless alliance with the world system.\u00a0 \u00a0It is not going to stop in midair and return.\u00a0 It is not going to bounce up from the cement below.\u00a0 It will irreparably shatter.<\/span><\/p>\n

I see the inevitable consequences of the conglomerate evil in society. Smooth and comforting platitudes affect these deceived and deluded ones like water on a duck\u2019s back.\u00a0 Such rhetoric only serves to meet the expectation of an annoyance-free atmosphere as they stroll to a fatal conclusion in eternal darkness.\u00a0 \u00a0There is no blessed hope for the wicked and rebellious ones.\u00a0 The only light shining for them is a brilliantly flashing word, \u201cREPENT\u201d.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

I understand that the redeemed and ransomed ones who are accepted in the Beloved are battling discouragement and even depression because of the condition of this world.\u00a0 They are searching for words of comfort, of assurance, and of hope.\u00a0 However, all they need is in God.\u00a0 They will not receive helpful or lasting benefits from human words.\u00a0 The present time of darkness and turmoil is the beginning a period of much harsher evil activities.\u00a0 If we are struggling to maintain now, how will we endure in worse times?\u00a0 The fact is that for decades professing Christians were warned to prepare for this period.\u00a0 They failed to do so.\u00a0 Now we are in it and they want a quick workshop in preparation.\u00a0 There is no such option.<\/span><\/p>\n

I encourage people to fully submit to God, completely trust in Him, and surrender to His will in all things.\u00a0 That is actually normal Christianity according to Romans 12:1.\u00a0 If one obeys that verse, there is nothing in life that the dregs of despondency and discouragement can touch.\u00a0 The Apostle Paul declared that if he had hope only in the temporal realm, he would be most miserable.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

The truth is that words of comfort and consolation not pointing people to full surrender to God in such a time as this is as a confection.\u00a0 It may produce a high, but has no lasting quality or strength.\u00a0 Christians ought not to have waited until the darkest hour to decide to rise up from their slouching commitment to God.\u00a0 Now in weakness, they wish all attention to be turned on them, to assure, encourage, and make them feel secure.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

This is not a secure time.\u00a0 There is great danger in complacency.\u00a0 It is a time to be alert, to recognize the evil that is at work, and to strengthen one\u2019s relationship and faith in God.\u00a0 Platitudes will not encourage that.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

The storm is coming.\u00a0 Shut the door and batten the windows.\u00a0 Prepare for the fury of it.\u00a0 Don\u2019t live in a cloud of false security.\u00a0 NO politician is going to deliver us.\u00a0 Our only hope is to put complete trust in God.\u00a0 Only that yields a peace that surpasses all understanding.\u00a0 A deep, settled peace and security issue from knowing that no matter what happens in this temporal realm, our lives are hidden with Christ in God.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

In summation, consider the story of the disciples in a boat battling a fierce storm.\u00a0 They saw Christ walking on the troubled sea.\u00a0 Notice that He did not command the wind to cease and the sea to be calm as once before.\u00a0 He was walking in the midst of a storm that He could have stopped.\u00a0 It was not until He entered the boat that the storm ceased. (Matthew 14)<\/span><\/p>\n

We must not expect the absence of storms before we experience peace and security.\u00a0 Further, we do not need anyone to give us false peace and security with platitudes that belie the nature of the storm.\u00a0 Instead, we need to be spiritually strong enough to maintain peace and security in spite of the turmoil around us.\u00a0 Such a spiritual, emotional, and mental state can only come by an intimate relationship with God.\u00a0 Words are not a valid substitute for that. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People sometimes accuse me of being too negative.\u00a0 They certainly have a case for declaring me as negative, but too negative is a matter of opinion. \u00a0The Apostle Paul was negative.\u00a0 Christ was negative. The fact is, the word of God is both positive and negative.\u00a0 There are positives in the Gospel, but it requires […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-the-remnant","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paIm2N-hL","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1101"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1415,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101\/revisions\/1415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}